It has to only work gmail to gmail, in which case it's entirely dependent on how the receiver is accessing their gmail account. If they are accessing their account through an application like outlook using imap or the native extension then it's probably not going to work. Also there's the obvious problems of screenshot and copy paste. All in all this is probably a terrible idea as it will do nothing more than offer a false sense of security to people who don't know any better.

What your suggesting they do is not legal within the GPL. If it's GPL code they can't publish it and then delay anything. Now if it's their own proprietary code that they GPL chunks of occasionally, that would be right in line with what most companies do including Red Hat and Novell.

They release their code because they want to encourage adoption which will hopefully encourage licensing of the closed version and support contracts. This is the only way to monetize open source currently and hence the crux of the problem. AdaCore can easily give to the GPL but can't really benefit from it. That encourages them to develop under their own license and use these little tricks you dislike.

You don't understand the purpose of the GPL. It's not intended to just give you things for free, but rather to give you freedom with your software. You want free stuff, and the GPL is good enough to provide you with that? Ok then. But the core premise of freedom with software should not be limited due to errors in design, and it currently is as you pointed out with games and other software, like hardware drivers.

I don't think they would. Red Hat and Novell write code under a proprietary license and then, a lot of the time, release chunks of it under the GPL after a certain amount of time. That's why the open source versions of their os have different names and often lag behind. Some software, like GroupWise, forever remains closed.

They practice exactly what I'm suggesting they just aren't able to as easily take back from the GPL as they are to give to it. So when they have to make big changes to pure GPL code they have little way to monetize it outside providing support.

Further on that point, those companies have been able to leverage their software into support contracts or cloud offerings. It's pretty difficult to a sell a support contract for a video game or hardware driver, which was my point entirely.

I've long believed the GPL has a major flaw that excludes it from wide adoption: there are too few ways to monetize GPL code. Now I'm sure some people are thinking "good, that's what the GPL is about", but they'd be wrong. The GPL is about freedom, and it's flaws force those interested in being paid for their work to often reinvent GPL code to monetize the software; closing it up entirely.

This problem is especially prelevant in industries like computer games, and hardware drivers; coincidentally two of the areas GPL code has constantly lagged behind. To fix this I would propose a provision, or perhaps a sub license that would allow a person or organisation to keep secret their source modifications for a period of time. Perhaps something like 1 or 2 years. This would give incentive to enterprise to build their products upon current GPL code as they could save money by not "reinventing the wheel", while also ensuring that their modifications would have a monetization period.

A well articulated and informed argument. Of course what you're touching on here is the old chestnut of nationalisation vs. privatization. It's an argument older than anyone alive today and the answer is for sure complex. However, judging from the successful countries in the world the answer seems to be that you need to strike a balance between the two. You can neither centralise, nor privatize everything and hope to have a healthy economy.

I'm Canadian so I'll use my country as an example. In the public sector we have schools, healthcare, employment insurance, old age pension, utilities, and traffic infrastructure as examples. The shared component with all of these is that they are fundamental to each citizens welfare. How each is managed is different and they all aren't run perfectly. Healthcare, for example, is a big beaurocracy. It's tightly controlled with little private sector influence and therefore is rife with waste and inefficiencies. Traffic infrastructure, by contrary, only centralises the power and decision making. Private enterprise bids on the actual work and thus competes and enjoys the benefits of market economics. This seems to be the best way to protect a public need, while maintaining efficiency.

As for the money supply. Money is of course the blood of any economy. It's vitally important and therefore becomes an interest of public welfare. Just like we can't have private enterprise building roads only to the guys business that pays the most, we can't have private enterprise controlling the money supply for their own interests. We learn these lessons slowly, and the hard way, and every time we learn a new lesson we build a shiny new regulation to deal with it. These regulations are like putting a bandaid on gangreen and only serve to create exactly what you hate in the first place: government bureaucracy.

Centralizing money creation by centralizing fractional reserve loans can be efficient just as traffic infrastructure is efficient. The government needs to merely: certify brokers, keep a national credit database, approve/deny loan requests, maintain interest rates. I wouldn't advocate setting up "Our Nations Bank" on every corner. Citibank will still give you your car loan, tack their couple of percent on the rate, maintain customer relations, and have to do so in a manner that is competitive in the market. They just don't get to control the power and decision making for the bloodflow of our economy.

It is utterly preposterous to use it IN SPITE of it being a rolling release, and to wish it wasn't.

Mine NEVER breaks, by the way.

Some value stability over the latest and greatest, but lucky you. If we all had the same hardware, software installed, and use-cases as you then your "opinion" might make sense. Many people use arch in SPITE of it having rolling releases and that certainly isn't preposterous. Suggesting that it is makes you, at best, a mindless fanboi, and at worst, an obtuse zealot.

I'm on arch, so way too often if you ask me. To specifically answer the question: at least once a week, with probably a new kernel update every couple of weeks. I make sure I have LVM snapshots between each update procedure as at least 1/4 of the time something breaks. I really wish arch didn't use rolling updates, but the vast AUR repository unique to arch is more than worth it.

Its wealth redistribution from everyone....right into the pockets of the already wealthy! Is it any wonder there are enough people fed up with it to create little niche markets like bitcoin?

It's no wonder. In fact, it's surprising more people aren't upset. Don't get me wrong, bitcoin has great intentions. I was very enthusiastic about it in the begining, but ultimately it's problems are too great to overcome. Ultimately I don't believe you can have a healthy decentralized economic system.

The biggest problem the west has economically is simple: corruption. Or more accurately I think: flawed fundamentals compounded by corruption. The most flawed of which being private enterprise controlling everything from investment speculation to the actual money supply.

If I were in a position of authority I would propose a gradual transfer of power from the private sector to a national central bank. Something like an increase on the fractional reserve ratio for all private enterprise by 2% per year until it hits 100. "New money" should then only be lent out by the central bank through private institutions acting as brokers. Profits from loans then go into the public treasury. Interest rates can then be controlled by a central authority who's core interest in is the welfare of the people, rather than shareholder profits. Periods of increased economic growth would result in increased social and public infrastructure spending, while periods of slower growth result in higher rates that help deflate bubbles and encourage saving.

There's still problems with corruption to be solved to ensure a central authority's ongoing interest in the public welfare (like corporate campaign donations) but you have to start somewhere.

There's more wrong than that. The creators of the protocol are of the shared mentality that any inflation is bad, thus bitcoins have a fixed supply. Once the last bitcoin is mined the currency will become deflationary. Proponents will counter this by exclaiming that coins are near infinitely divisible so prices can just modify themselves to fix to the currency supply. This, of course, completely ignores the human psychological element which makes deflation a problem in the first place (ie. If wages and prices would just auto adjust no amount of deflation/inflation would be a problem in the first place). Furthermore, prices auto adjusting doesn't correct the issue of deflation disproportionately rewarding the current "haves" over the "have nots".

The lack of centralization also presents the 51% problem. Proponents are naive to assume this will never happen when the mining process requires heavy investment in specialized hardware. Mining creates an oligarchy by design.

It's not. Neither you, nor Microsoft, knows what's best for people.. so stop presuming you do. That is a very disturbing trend in the tech industry these days.

Having automatic Windows updates on by default and requiring a device administrator to disable it is prudent. Removing the ability to disable it is presumptuous and short sighted. I'll give you some scenarios why.

1) I'm giving a presentation on my laptop. Windows updates and restarts and the entire audience has to wait 10 minutes. Why don't I have pro? I don't know. I bought this stupid thing at Best Buy!
2) I'm trying to download a large file at home to get some work done and it's going at 20K/sec because Windows has decided it's time to update and destroy my bandwidth.
3) I'm in the middle of a game or some work and my computer just reboots because it has decided to update.
4) And of course: my computer updated and now my webcam doesn't work (this actually happened to me recently).

The crux of the problem may just be that Windows doesn't do updates very well. Regardless, the lack of choice and configuration is not, and should not, be a welcome "feature".

Nothing except Domain support (which a home user would never need) that I'm aware of. It could just be that giving users of their "free" OS one more reason to purchase the paid upgrade to pro is motivation enough for this "feature".